


Falling Back

by twotenths



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Developing Relationship, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Pre-Slash, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-18 21:46:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4721618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twotenths/pseuds/twotenths
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After three years apart, Rob and Felipe meet again on the floor of the canteen in Maranello.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling Back

**Author's Note:**

> Set primarily in 2006, between the San Marino and European races. Flashbacks in italics are set in 2003 when they were both on the Ferrari test team together (What? What do you mean Rob didn't join the test team until the end of 2003? HURRR WHAT IS CANON)
> 
> Inspired by the lyrics: "I've had just about enough  
> Of quote "diamonds in the rough"  
> Because my backbone is paper thin  
> Get me out of this cavern or I'll cave in"
> 
> -(Owl City, Cave in)

Maranello is rarely quiet. It buzzes, it thrums with the spirit of Italy, the expectations of millions of Tifosi. It is the soul of Italian motorsport, the heartbeat of Formula One.

It's given Rob a migraine.

He excused himself from the engineering meeting they were having to go over the latest test data and headed towards the canteen, praying it would be empty and, hopefully, quiet. Kneading his forehead, he mentally reviewed the numbers he had just been working on, trying to figure out the key points to give to the race team for next week. Anything to give the new guy a chance; Rob couldn't figure out what the problem was, but something wasn't clicking. The young test driver he had met quite a few times in 2003 didn't correlate with the Ferrari driver under pressure in the race car. It was a puzzle, but one he was determined to figure out, once he had a chance to analyse the data from the last race.

At that moment, as he walked into the canteen and made a beeline for the coffee machine, he tripped over an unexpected pair of feet.

"Fuck!" he swore, staggering into a chair and banging his shin quite hard.

"Scusa!" came the reply from the errant pair of feet.

Rob looked around, frowning, to see Felipe Massa peering up at him, sheepishly, from the floor.

***

_As Felipe stood in front of the Fiorano garages, the very air around him seeming to shimmer with magic, he felt simultaneously like a kid in a candy store and a child before their first day at school. Suddenly losing his Sauber seat didn't seem too bad, as he breathed in the warm Italian air, gazing reverentially at the building in front of him; how many people got this opportunity to drive a real life, goddamn Ferrari F1 car? Truly the stuff dreams were made of._ _Grinning, he adjusted the bag on his shoulder and entered the garage._

_Unfortunately his grand entrance fell as flat as he did, when he tripped over a pair of legs on the floor._

_"Merda!"_

_"Sorry!"_

_Winded, Felipe look around so see a bright blue pair of eyes looking at him, mortified, from underneath the F2002. The pair of them scrambled to their feet self consciously and stood for a moment, quite unsure what to say to each other._

_"Sorry about that," the blue eyed man said, "I was just having a look underneath to get a feel for how the car would handle with the floor aerodynamics, didn't realise anyone else was going to be in so soon .." He trailed off, rapidly turning the same colour as his shirt. All of a sudden, his eyes widened, as comprehension dawned on him. "Oh shit, you're the new driver? Fuck, I'm really sorry, are you alright? D'you want to go and get checked out, you look alright but God fucking forbid if I've broken your wrist or something .."_

_He carried on babbling, speaking so fast that Felipe really had no idea what he was saying. English had never been his strongest language and now some guy was in front of him, firing questions at him so fast that he could only half translate the first one in his head before the next was being asked. The man was looking at him expectantly and Felipe realised he had stopped talking and was waiting for some sort of an answer from him. It was highly unlikely he spoke Portuguese, but given he was wearing a Ferrari shirt, he should be able to speak Italian._

_"Err ciao. Sono Felipe, chi sei?"_

_The man's face fell. "Oh. Ciao. Chi sei, chi sei," he muttered to himself, pulling out a sheet of paper from his back pocket to scrutinise. "Chi sei .. Ah! Who are you! I'm Rob," he said, offering his hand, then quickly withdrawing it to look at his piece of paper again. "I mean, il mio nome e Rob."_

_He was really quite attractive, Felipe thought, as he clasped Rob's hand. Still, he hoped he would be working with someone who spoke Italian, or this wasn't going to go well at all._

_"Ciao Felipe, come stai?" Alessandro, the test team manager, asked as he breezed into the garage, pulling him into a one armed hug. "Vedo che hai incontrato Rob, che ci ha unito e verrà a lavorare con voi sul vostro programma di test."_

_Felipe's heart sank as Rob looked blankly at the pair of them, before pulling out his sheet of paper again._

_***_

"Are you okay?" Felipe asked, round eyed.

"Yeah fine," Rob said, rubbing his shin gingerly, "Just a bruise. Errrr, sempre una .. bruisa?"

The worried expression on Felipe's face vanished in an instant as he snorted out a laugh at Rob's Italian.

"Contusione," he said, grinning. "Is okay, I speak English better now."

Rob smiled, shifting his weight onto his undented leg. "That's good, I've been speaking Italian all bloody day and I only know what I assume is very rude Portuguese. From your testing days," he explained, in response to the confused tilt of the head. "You used to swear over the radio whenever you missed a braking point."

Felipe looked mildly appalled. "I didn't know people could hear!"

"It gave us all a laugh," Rob shrugged, grinning. He received a withering look from the young Brazilian, which surprised Rob somewhat. "Cheer up sunshine, it's not all so bad, eh?"

***

_Enjoying himself, he found, was rather difficult when not everyone looked like they were having fun. Rob's disposition had slipped from politely interested, to disengaged, to downright bored. The scrap of paper had been long since abandoned on the top of the bar, and he sat nursing his drink miserably. Felipe had been leaving the factory with some of the testing team, on the way to the local bar, when he'd spotted Rob getting into his car. Every evening he seemed to slip away without a fuss, not pausing to chat with the other engineers. At first Felipe had thought that maybe he was very shy. Now, after inviting him out and witnessing him slump moodily at the bar, he was beginning to think that he was miserable. Still, he had to work with him, so he had to try and coax him out of his shell._

_"Come stai?" he asked, leaving the rest of the mechanics laughing at the other table, perching himself on the stool next to Rob._

_He gave him a wry smile. "Bene."_

_Felipe chuckled, "No paper?"_

_Rob sighed. "Not that thick."_

_"Corragio!"_

_"Hmm?" Rob frowned at him, glancing at the cheat sheet. "Haven't got that one there, mate."_

_Felipe thought for a moment, trying to find the right words in English. Spurred on by alcohol, he giggled, sticking his fingers into the corners of Rob's mouth, propping his lips into a grin. "Smile more!"_

_He laughed as Rob tried to frown at him and cried out in mock disgust when he slobbered all over his fingers, quickly retrieving his them and wiping them on Rob's shirt, who tried to give him a stern look, before bursting out laughing._

_"Idiot."_

_Felipe stood, gesturing to the table. "Come."_

_"I don't understand them. Non capisco. Italiano molto .. crap."_

_They contemplated each other for a moment. "Is hard. New place, new language" Felipe said, sympathetically. "Gaetano, he helps."_

_Rob craned his neck, to look at one of the other engineers._

_"He work last year with Williams, he can .."_

_"Translate?"_

_Felipe smiled. "Yes. But make him not drink!"_

_Grinning, Rob picked up his drink and slid off the stool, heading back towards the team, his team sat._

_"Grazie," he said, sliding into a chair next to Gaetano._

_"You are welcome," Felipe replied, holding contact just long enough to see his the sparkle back in his bright blue eyes, before being dragged back into the merriment. Within minutes Rob had settled into some cheerful banter aided by Gaetano and expressive (and lewd) hand gestures._

_Maybe this guy was alright._

***

"Come on mate, you know what they're like with the new guys, you  _know_ I got stick too!"

Felipe looked like he was biting back a grin. "Yeah, I remember. We speak all the long Italian words to make you confused! And give you the wrong words to use .. Sorry."

"You could try looking apologetic about it," Rob laughed, leaning back on the chair, folding his arms across his chest in mock affront. He vividly recalled being smacked over the head with a handbag by an old Italian woman when he asked her if she needed help crossing the road, as the mechanics howled with laughter in the background. " _Fica_ doesn't mean road, does it?"

Felipe struggled to draw breath in, shoulders shaking as he laughed croakily, "For sure not!"

Soon Rob was taken over by a fit of laughter as he recalled the incident himself. "I knew I shouldn't have trusted you lot, I've still got a fucking dent in my skull, she must have been carrying bricks around with her!"

Wiping tears out of his eyes, Felipe's laughs subsided into chuckles as he regained his composure. "You are okay now? Not too angry?"

"Nah," Rob said. "I mean, I'll get my own back, but I survived."

He let silence stretch comfortably between them for a few moments. He hadn't expected to bump into Felipe (literally, as it turned out), but he was quite pleased how easy it had been to fall back into a groove with the young Brazilian. It felt like it had taken them a long time to get comfortable with each other .. More than comfortable, verging into uncertainty and confusion at the end, and their parting had been abrupt. And now here he was; three years older and wiser, looking like he had grown into his bones, less boyish. But with that came the weight of expectation on his shoulders, threatening to cave him in as he sat hunched over his notes, the set in his jaw that had begun to creep back as the moment drifted on.

"You are well, hmm?" Felipe asked, apparently unaware of the absurdity of conducting a conversation from the floor (almost underneath a table, he must add) of a slightly dusty dining hall.

"I'm sure you don't want me to bore you with the happenings in my life from the last three years," he said smiling wryly. "And I have a fairly broad understanding of what you've been up to in that time. So let me ask you a question."

"Hmm?

"What are you doing sitting on the floor of the canteen?"

Felipe's face darkened and he shrugged his shoulders miserably. "Wanted to get away from the engineers and look over my telemetry alone." he mumbled, flicking through the sheaf of paper in his lap.

Rob considered him briefly. "So you're hiding?"

"Not hiding," Felipe pouted, "Just .. Not being so visible, you know?"

"Right. So what if I was to tell you that Gabriele has been standing in the doorway the whole time?"

Felipe's head shot up above the table, peering around in horror, before he noticed Rob laughing, and he sank back down looking thunderous. "You are not so funny."

"I don't know, I thought it was quite amusing!"

Felipe continued to scowl, frowning at his notes. "I have to do this before I go and see my team again or they will be annoyed, so maybe I should be working and not listening to you joke."

His attention turned back to the papers in his hands, but from the way his eyes were fixed and his shoulders hunched, Rob could tell he wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention to them. Clearly a "leave me alone" tactic. Suddenly, he could see the difference between the 2003 test driver and the stressed out Ferrari driver; he was isolated.

He nudged Felipe's foot with his toe, causing his eyes to flick up, glowering at Rob over the top of his telemetry. "Want a cup of tea?"

The brown eyes softened.

***

_Thunder rumbled overhead, eclipsing the scream of the V10 on track. Rob glanced at the weather tracker; the storm was edging closer and closer to Maranello and would soon be threatening Fiorano. Still, there was data to collect, and they would keep running until they got everything they needed or the heavens opened, whichever came first._

_As it happened, the storm won._

_The call to pit came just after Felipe had passed the garages. Rob winced as the rain came battering down, drowning out the sound of the car crawling around the track in the distance. A very bedraggled Brazilian brought the car back after what seemed like an age, parked up and climbed out. He was immediately collared by a hoard of senior engineers who were quite keen to know how the car felt on slicks in the wet. Very little consideration was given to how the driver felt in the wet, as he stood in the midst of the discussion in his soaked overalls, contributing little more than increasingly violent shivers as the engineers blithely carried on, completely unaware._

_Rob tried to turn his attention back to the data screens, but couldn't get himself to concentrate with the Brazilian vibrating in the corner of his vision. Sighing, he got up from his perch and went into the back of the garage._

_Felipe's eyebrows rose as five minutes later he was presented with a Ferrari jumper and a steaming cup of tea. He gratefully accepted both, pulling the jumper over his damp Nomex and cradling the mug in his hands. He ducked out of the huddle of engineers._

_"Thank you," he said to Rob's retreating form. He turned to look over his shoulder at the Brazilian in his oversized jumper, reverentially holding the drink to his chest as though it was his first born. He smiled._

_"Prego."_

_***_

"So you see? Every time I am losing, losing, and I cannot make it right!"

Rob considered the data in front of him. Somehow in the intervening half hour or so, he had ended up on the floor next to Felipe, leant against the wall between two tables, legs outstretched, two cups of tea forgotten on the floor between them.

"I think I can see the problem," he said slowly, scrutinising one of the graphs. "What happened here on lap fifteen?"

Felipe furrowed his brow as he thought back. "I think I spin a little bit, but I keep on going."

"Yeah. So look before, on every lap before that you take that corner perfectly, look, it's proper bang on every time. Then after that incident, every time you take that corner it's inconsistent, sometimes you're coming in too quickly, other times you're rolling off the brakes way too early. Your problem is here." He tapped Felipe on the side of his head.

"I am stupid," he replied, looking at him sardonically.

"Did I say that?" Rob admonished. "You're not stupid, you're very bright. What you're doing is overthinking. You made a mistake, and that's alright, it happens to all of us, but every time you came to that corner again, you're only remembering the thing you did wrong and trying to correct it, but overcorrrecting. And the next time you come around you're trying to correct the overcorrection and you just end up chasing your tail. Does that make sense?"

"I think so," Felipe said. "But Michael--"

"Forget Michael!"

Felipe chuckled darkly, "I think you might be fired if you say that in front of Luca or Ross, no?"

"Well just as well I'm talking to you then." Rob said. "You know what Michael doesn't do when he's driving?"

"Make mistakes?"

"Think. He doesn't think about driving. He thinks about strategy, his tyres, what his rivals are doing, but actually driving the car is automatic. And he does make mistakes," Rob added, "What he doesn't do is dwell on them. If he fucks up, he recognises that he did something wrong, but he's not beating himself up about it for a full lap."

After a minute of contemplation, Felipe finally nodded. "Okay, I think maybe you are right."

"You better believe I'm bloody well right." Rob smiled at Felipe's small huff of laughter. "You know as well as I do who you've got to impress."

***

_It was all a bit surreal, really. He had been to Monza before, sure, but never as a Ferrari driver._

_Getting into the circuit had been equal parts incredible and terrifying, people screaming, grabbing, just wanting to touch the sleeve of a Ferrari driver. Next time ("Meu deus, let there be a next time!") he was going to try and attach himself to one of Michael's security guys, who did a remarkable job in getting him through the hoard unscathed._

_All of that lay forgotten at the back of his mind, as he hovered nervously at the back of the garage, eyes glued to the screen. This was what the test team had been working towards, victory at home, and a few members of the team had been invited along for race day, to hopefully see all their hard work come to fruition._

_Despite Michael leading, the tension seemed to be too much for some._

_Felipe followed, slipping out the back of the garage into the mostly deserted paddock, to see Rob lighting up a cigarette._

_"Is bad," he said, realising as soon as he said it that he probably sounded like a nagging grandma._

_Rob looked up in surprise, apparently unaware that he had been followed. He chuckled softly, "I know," a stuttering swirl of smoke escaping his mouth. "Nervous habit. Not even Marlboros, I should be shot!"_

_He showed Felipe the packet to emphasise his point, who laughed._

_"You should watch, no?"_

_Rob considered him for a moment. "Si, dovrei. So should you. What are you doing out here?"_

_Felipe thought for a moment, not really sure why he had dragged himself away from a captivating race, just that he wanted to know why Rob had left. "I don't know," he said, mostly truthfully._

_He let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding when Rob just nodded and didn't try and shoo him away, the pair of them standing in companionable silence for a minute or two whilst he finished his cigarette._

_"Ever been to Monza before as a fan?" he asked over the roaring engines, startling Felipe out of his trance._

_"No, I have always been driving. You?"_

_"Once," he replied, smiling wistfully. "When I was at University me and some friends drove down to Italy to watch the race. Alesi got on the podium and all the Italians went bloody mental, it was brilliant."_

_Felipe smiled as his brain caught up with the response. Being around Rob, despite their communication issues, always instilled a sense of calmness in him. Perhaps it was something about the way he spoke, low and gentle, the words softly clipped with his unusual ("Northern" Rob had explained, once) accent._

_Rob took one last drag and flicked the butt onto the floor. "Come on," he said to Felipe, heading towards the paddock exit._

_Felipe hurried after him, frowning. "Where?"_

_"Onto the track, the race is nearly finished and you have never had the experience of being under the Monza podium."_

_"With all the people?"_

_Rob laughed. "Aren't you one of those drivers that got into it so you'd have mobs of women throwing their knickers at you?" he teased._

_"No," said Felipe in a small voice, "I just wanted to win."_

_Rob stopped and gave him a smile, which Felipe, having later looked at a dictionary, would have described as fond. "You've got to experience it. Are you in?"_

_After only a moment's hesitation he nodded, then began pulling his top over his head, much to Rob's confusion._

_"What are you doing?"_

_"If we wear uniform maybe we get seen, trouble from team." There was some, small grain of truth in what he was saying, but mostly, he thought it was worth a shot._

_Rob huffed a laugh, then sighed loudly. "Fine," he said, stripping off, tucking his Ferrari shirt into the waistband of his trousers. Felipe let his eyes drift across the pale torso, grinning wickedly at the blush spreading across his chest, as he saw Rob quickly look away from his own lithe body. Maybe, just maybe .._

_Twenty minutes later, after finding a suitably quiet point to jump the barriers (which Rob hugely misjudged, making Felipe laugh at the stream of Italian swear words coming from his mouth, the part of the language he had clearly picked up easiest), they joined the throng, sprinting to the podium._

_"Come on!" Rob shouted, "Let's get a good spot. Hang on!" Felipe looked back over his shoulder to find he had rather left him in his wake. He darted back, grabbed Rob's wrist to stop them getting separated, and dragged him into the melée._

_They were surrounded on all sides by ecstatic Tifosi, Rob pressed into Felipe's back, both craning their necks to look at the podium almost directly above them. The drivers emerged and the roar and surge of the crowd nearly knocked Felipe off his feet, had Rob not grabbed him by the shoulder to keep him upright. Excitement spread through the crowd like a fever, building and building like a crescendo; it was impossible not get swept up in it, and the pair of the roared along to the Italian anthem with the crowd, spurred on by Michael conducting above them (Felipe was convinced he saw Michael notice him and slip him the smallest of winks, but the German never mentioned it afterwards). When the champagne was sprayed, the crowd went wild, all delighted to have got even the smallest drop on them, a memento of the success stained on their skin._

_This, Felipe realised, was what it meant to be a Ferrari driver, to hear the crowd screaming out his name. Pressed up against the tall Brit, whooping loudly along with the rest of them, he hoped he would get the chance to experience it for himself._

 

 ***

Felipe smiled wryly. "For sure I have big shoes to fill. Rubens, he was not Ayrton but for Brazil he is still the man. And Michael, he is .. Michael. The team, the media, they are sure to compare you all the time, I have to really impress."

Rob frowned. Michael was indeed, Michael. He hadn't considered the poisoned chalice that was being a Brazilian driver in the post-Senna era. Rubens had borne the brunt of the expectation of Brazil since 1994 and he still bore the scars of Not Being Ayrton. These were dangerous standards to live up to.

"Look," he said, genuinely feeling a bit annoyed about the whole situation young drivers were put in. "Just remember-- you're not Rubens Barrichello and you're not Michael Schumacher. You're Felipe fucking Massa, you're a fucking Ferrari driver and they underestimate you at their peril. Don't you let them forget that."

A slow smile spread across Felipe's face. "I am, aren't I?"

"Yeah. Fuck the lot of them, mate. You're gonna be brilliant." Rob said, jostling his shoulder. "You perked up a bit now?"

"For sure a lot!" Felipe said. "I think maybe I am ready to get on the podium in Germany."

"Glad to hear it, I look forward to seeing the trophy when you bring it back."

Felipe sat and thought for a moment, absent mindedly twisting a piece of paper in his hands.

"Why are you still here?"

Rob looked up in surprise. "Well, I was on my way to get a cuppa and some aspirin for my migraine when I fell over and got waylaid by some Brazilian lad .."

"No no, I mean why are you still  _here_?" he said, looking at Rob and waiting for the penny to drop. "You are a clever man, you give me good advice on driving and how to think in the car and not in the car, you could be an engineer in a race team, no? You could go to any team and they have you."

It felt distinctly like the rug had been pulled out from under Rob's feet, as the tables were turned on him. This innocent jaunt in search of caffeine had turned into a bit of a group therapy session. "I'm waiting for the right opportunity," he said, measuring his words. "I mean, I'm working for the best, the most dominant team on the grid, what we do is crucial to keep us winning. I've got incentive to keep on doing that."

"It would be nice to see the wins, no?"

Rob thought back to Monza in 2003, standing under the podium with the Brazilian tucked under his arm, to his first visit to a race, scrabbling over a fence to get into the paddock and see his heroes in person. Back at Jordan, even after the crap races, they had always found somewhere to go for a drink afterwards and reflect on having one of the most interesting, if difficult, jobs in the world. The last race he had sat in a dark room with a computer for five hours. "Yeah. It'd be nice."

Felipe didn't respond immediately, just sucked on his lower lip contemplatively. "Well. I hope the opportunity comes for you."

"Thanks." He looked at Felipe fondly, who looked a lot more settled than when he had bumped into him earlier, the stormy sea of emotions behind his eyes was now more even and tranquil, subtly concealing the fire of determination burning behind them. This was someone who was ready to get back out on the track and kick arse.

He gestured at the telemetry. "Have you learnt from this now?"

"Yeah."

"Good."

In one swift movement, Rob leant over, plucking the telemetry out of his hands and ripped it up, making Felipe cry out in horror.

"You said it yourself, you've acknowledged your mistake from this," Rob pointed out. "And this way you can't go back and obsess over it. You can move on."

Felipe slumped back against the wall, smiling wryly. "Fine. But Gabriele--"

"Oh, fuck Gabriele!"

"For sure I can think of someone else I would rather fuck."

***

_Michael won. Everyone would always say they never had any doubt, but they would be lying. The atmosphere at Maranello had been unbearably tense for months, the gap between him and Kimi had been terrifyingly close with Juan Pablo only having been knocked out of contention at the previous round. Rob himself had chain smoked through the entireity of the final race, with Kimi challenging Rubens for the lead and Michael grimly hanging onto a points finish. But he had done it; a record sixth World Driver Championship and a 13th constructors championship for Ferrari. They were on top of the fucking world and deserved to celebrate as such._

_No expense was spared for the end of season party; an expensive club in Milan, with the team footing the bill for the open bar, all members of the team from the principal to the receptionist were invited._

_It could only end messily._

_Rob weaved his way onto the dance floor, trusting his feet to keep him upright, not quite convinced his trust was best placed. It was reaching the point in the night where the best among them could be described as "wasted" and the worst as "catatonic". He patted Gaetano's unconscious face as he passed the booth he was passed out in, grinning to himself as he swiped a bottle of beer from the bar and entered the throng of colleagues still going strong._

_"Swap?"_

_He turned to find Felipe standing behind him holding a comically large bottle of champagne over his head, a dangerous smirk on his face. Rob reached out for the bottle and Felipe jerked it away laughing, which turned to spluttering as Rob staggered into the diminutive Brazilian, causing them both to clatter into a group of mechanics._

_"Fucking come on!" Rob grinned, still trying to reach over his head. "Possessive twat. Gimme, you cazzo!"_

_Felipe laughed as Rob climbed all over him, eyes crinkling. "No, for sure you have too much!"_

_And with that, he disappeared into the crowd._

_Huffing good naturedly, Rob followed, elbowing people out of the way until he reached the edge of the crowd, where he stopped, squinting around in the flashing lights. Eventually, he spotted him in a booth in a dark corner of the club, eyes twinkling with amusement as he watched Rob searching. He sauntered over as best as his blood alcohol levels would allow, leaning up against the wall and towering over the Brazilian._

_"That was very fucking rude you know?"_

_Felipe smirked. "You drink too much, no more!"_

_"We just fucking won. Abbibamo .. Abbiamo vinto! And I'm gonna fucking celebrate." He grinned and lunged for the bottle again, sprawling over the giggling Brazilian._

_"I do it!" he said, offering the bottle up and tilting it towards Rob's lips. He latched on, eyes widening in alarm as the bottle tipped further and further until he couldn't keep up with flow of the drink, spluttering with laughter as the champagne spilled over his chin and all down himself. "Cazzo!"_

_The mischievous brown eyes latched onto his. "I help."_

_Without warning, Rob found himself pinned to the wall, Felipe's hands either side of him, as he pressed his face into the crook of Rob's neck, licking at the champagne that was trickling down his neck . The champagne bottle thudded to the floor as Felipe's attention was fully diverted to the writhing Brit underneath him, eyes wide with surprise and pleasure. When Felipe sucked on his pulse point, he threw his head back, where it connected sharply with the wall, which would have hurt quite a bit had his attention not been elsewhere._

_The young Brazilian pulled back suddenly, looking enquiringly at Rob through the flashing lights, almost nervously. All bashfulness was forgotten when Rob threaded one hand through his hair and pulled him for a kiss, that Felipe was all too eager to respond to, crushing Rob against the wall with all the intent of his onslaught. All thoughts of their painfully awkward beginning were driven out of Rob's mind as Felipe pushed his hip up against his crotch, diverting all the blood in his body south. All that time he had spent wondering, thinking about Felipe, stealing covert glances at him when he hoped no one was looking, all that time Felipe had apparently been doing the same, just keeping his hands to himself out of uncertainty and professionalism._

_Well all that was out of the window tonight._

_Rob's cock was straining painfully against his jeans as Felipe rolled his hips, hot puffs of air on his collarbone as he leant against his chest, desperately rutting against the Brit. Rob felt his heart stutter as Felipe's fingers started feverishly working at his belt buckle, he was close, so fucking close--_

_"Felipe!"_

_They jumped apart as though scalded, hearts hammering, just before Rubens stuck his head into the booth, blithely unaware of what he had just interrupted._

_"You take the champagne and hide away in a corner with it, you're so bad!" he chastised, laughing. "Who's your friend?"_

_Rob didn't trust himself to speak, hoping he didn't too much like a rabbit caught in the headlights._

_"This is Rob, he's on the test team." Felipe's voice sounded a few octaves higher than usual._

_Rubens barely glanced at him. "Cool. Come back to the party!" he said, slinging an arm around Felipe's shoulders and steering him away. "We've got some celebrating to do!"_

_With a brief, wide eyed glance back, they were gone, leaving Rob stood alone feeling distinctly shell shocked. After taking a moment to compose himself, he made a beeline for the loos, hurriedly undoing his belt as he unlocked the cubicle to finish the job that had been left abandoned._

_***_

Rob quirked his eyebrows, feeling the blush creep into his face. "Can you now?" he mumbled, not looking at Felipe.

 "I think you know this," Felipe said, eyes burning into the side of Rob's face.

"Well," Rob said, meticulously shredding pieces of telemetry onto the floor, "Perhaps the person you want to fuck felt like they were getting mixed feelings from you."

Felipe frowned. "I--"

"Felipe, dove stei stato?"

They both jumped, startled, and scrambled to their feet, looking sheepishly at Giuliano, who was looking curiously at them from the doorway.

"Ciao Rob," he said, and Rob nodded back, hoping his cheeks weren't as red as they felt. "Felipe we have been looking everywhere for you, you have been gone over an hour!"

The pair of them raised their eyebrows as they looked at their watches. They had clearly got more sidetracked than they thought.

"Sorry!" Felipe said, "I bet Gabriele is mad, huh?"

Giuliano smiled grimly, which was all the answer Felipe needed. "What is that on the floor?"

A snowdrift of shredded paper had collected around their ankles. "My telemetry."

Giuliano choked back a laugh. "Why did you tear it up?"

"I was finished with it," Felipe replied with a composed and confident grin, which made Rob smile wryly to himself. The fireworks back in the race meeting ought to be interesting.

Guiliano seemed to think so too as he good-naturedly dragged a hand through his hair in exasperation. "Well you are late and you have no notes, so this should be fun. Let's go."

"I'll be there," he said, motioning for him to go along without him. He nodded, saying another "Ciao!" to Rob before hurrying off back down the corridor.

Rob leant on the edge of a table, looking guiltily at all of the paper on the floor. "In hindsight," he said in a light, conversational tone, in stark contrast to their previous topic of conversation, "I probably shouldn't have ripped up all your notes.

Felipe shrugged. "Like you say, I learn from them, now I don't need to think about it again. It's the past."

"It's funny how, even though you know you shouldn't, you can't help but dwell on the past though, eh?"

Fuck, he cared. He cared too much. Falling for a colleague was one thing; falling for a Ferrari driver-- well, that was something else altogether. A tanned hand settled on his knee, as Felipe stood between Rob's legs, one finger tipping his chin back so he could look at Felipe in the eye.

"My feelings are not mixed," he said simply. "My timing is just bad."

"You're fucking telling me, you just abandoned a fucking engineering meeting for an hour to talk to me, of course you're bad with your timing!"

Felipe laughed the way he always did, eyes crinkling with glee as his face lit up. "For sure, that is me! Thank you," he said, sincerely, "For talking with me."

"Any time." He meant it, too, for all their stilted and confusing past. Felipe was a fucking good guy, and he deserved all the chances he got.

The hand that was still under his chin was now sliding over the rough five o clock shadow on his face, into the hair at the nape of his neck as Felipe bent down from his unusually elevated position to press his lips against Rob's, waiting for just a moment for that reciprocation, before deepening the kiss. Against all rational thought, Rob allowed himself to get drawn into it, melting underneath him. 

Almost as soon as the kiss had begun, Felipe pulled back, a glitter of something vaguely mischievous in his eyes and an easy smile on his face. Rob got the impression that being around the young Brazilian was like being in state of permanent, low level shell shock. Felipe fucking Massa; as unpredictable as they came. Maybe it would serve him well.

"For the headache," Felipe said with a wink, as he made his way out of the canteen.

Rob shook his head, chuckling, willing the redness in his face to  _fucking abate, for fucks sake!_ "Bring me back some fucking trophies, eh?"

Felipe stopped at the doorway, spinning around on the door frame to shoot one last grin and nod at Rob, before disappearing off down the corridor, leaving Rob to ponder on what just happened and  _fuck!_ how late he was getting back to his own meeting.

***

_Felipe wandered the corridors of Maranello feeling distinctly at sea. It had all happened so quickly, and despite Nicolas' assurances that this was good news and they have a lot to be excited about, he couldn't help but feel adrift, floating away. And it was good news, it really was. He excused himself, telling them all he was going to the toilet, but he had unconsciously followed his feet elsewhere._

_His feet seemed to have a habit of not looking where they were going._

_"Ow!"_

_He looked up, startled, at the person he had just bodily walked into. Rob looked down at him, surprised._

_"And there was me thinking you were avoiding me." he said, wryly._

_Felipe continued to look up at him, mind whirring but not providing him with any words, so he continued to gaze up at him like a bunny caught in the headlights, mouth gaping uselessly._

_Rob sighed. "Look--"_

_"I'm leaving!"_

_A stunned silence stretched between them. It was, Felipe reflected, probably not the best way to break the news, but he was still reeling from it himself. Rob seemed to deflate before his very eyes._

_"Oh."_

_"I go back to Sauber, they take me back for two, maybe three years."_

_"When?"_

_"Now. I go to the airport now, to Switzerland to sign everything." He inwardly cursed his inability to soften the blow, each word seeming to make Rob's eyebrows creep higher and higher._

_"Well," Rob huffed a dry laugh. "That's that then."_

_For all that Felipe had resented losing his race seat, and all the frustration that was borne out of driving the best, most beautiful cars in the world but not being allowed to race them .. The thought of going back to Sauber now left him feeling a bit empty. The innate racer would take over soon, once he got pen on paper and the thought of being back on track took over his consciousness, but right now, looking around the hallowed grounds he had called home for a year, he just felt a bit lost. The man in front of him did nothing to ease those feelings._

_"Rob," he began, "I--"_

_"Felipe?" They both turned to see Nicolas approaching. "The car is waiting, we have to get to the airport now."_

_All that time it had taken them to break down the language barriers, to learn how to communicate in a way that was mutually understood, and it turned out that neither of them had the words to say what they really wanted._

_"Go on," Rob said softly, only making Felipe's heart ache all the more,"You shouldn't keep them waiting you know."_

_He put out his hand and Felipe shook it, lingering for just a moment. "Ciao Rob."_

_As he turned to leave, Rob called out behind him. "Hey," he said, as Felipe turned to look back at him. "Boa sorte, eh?"_

_Felipe smiled. It was only two words, but enough to let him know that Rob cared. As he walked through the halls of Maranello and out into the weak, wintry sun, he breathed deeply, taking it all in. He was going to come back. He got his foot in the door this year, and he knew the bosses were impressed, he was going to work harder than ever to make racing one of those red cars a reality._

_And now? Now he just had a bit more incentive._

_***_

Two days later, Rob woke up abruptly, blearily searching for the source of the disturbance. Rubbing sleep out of his eyes, he blindly groped for his phone, peering at the screen. _5am, too fucking early. Caller ID--_

"Shit!"

Hastily he climbed out of bed, coughing a few times to clear the sleep roughness out of his voice, before answering the phone.

"Ciao, Luca?"

Six frantic hours, two cab rides, and an anxious plane ride later, he found himself outside of the Ferrari motorhome in the Nurburgring paddock, dazedly running his thumb over the words on his shiny new paddock pass: ROB SMEDLEY, RACE ENGINEER.

"So you are here?"

He turned to find Felipe looking up at him, smiling nervously. 

"Here I am," he exhaled shakily, feeling incredibly out of place. "Listen Felipe--"

"We talk in my room. We talk." he implored, brown eyes boring earnestly into Rob's soul. Allowing himself to be led, he followed Felipe into the motorhome, past the group of mechanics chatting animatedly by the coffee machine, and up to the top floor, into a small room.

"You didn't have to do this, you know?" Rob blurted out almost as soon as the door shut behind them. "You don't have to feel sorry for me or anything. Just because we had a bit of a natter earlier this week, it doesn't mean you have to feel fucking obligated to talk the big bosses into giving me a promotion, that's not how I wanted--"

Felipe cut across the babble. "Rob, stop. I don't do this because I think, huh, poor Rob, still in the testing team. Or that you try to make me get you a higher job." Rob huffed, but let his shoulders drop a bit, the tension in his arms folded across his chest ease just a little. "I do it because everyone, they only look at the computer, at the numbers and say do this, do that. You look at me. You see what I need to be a better driver. Not numbers."

Rob allowed himself a small smile, as the studious engineer in him protested indignantly. "The numbers  _are_ important too, y'know."

"I know! Everyone is always saying to me the numbers are important. But you are the only one to say  _I_ am important too. When you speak with me, I feel like a lake, and not the sea." 

The uneasiness in Rob's chest seemed to melt away at last. It was happening. It was  _really_ happening, after all his years of hard work and dedication, he was going to be a race engineer for Ferrari. A grin spread slowly across his face as he let it sink in, regaining some of his usual self assurance. The mood in the room seemed to have lifted Felipe's spirits as well, as he approached Rob with a coy smile on his face.

"Congratulations, meu engenheiro."

"Thanks," Rob said, ducking his head to hide the extent of his beaming. "But really, you could have fucking picked anyone else. Why me? And don't give me all that numbers bullshit again."

Felipe scoffed. "Well the numbers shit is true! But is not true, I could not have picked anyone else. Firstly, because even if you do not think, you are the only person who can make me not a headcase!" Rob chuckled lightly, leaning back on the wall invitingly as Felipe crowded his personal space, tip toeing until his nose was inches from Rob's. "And secondly," he rubbed his thumb down the length of Rob's jaw. "Because I am a fucking Ferrari driver, and I get what I want."

Rob grinned.


End file.
